That’s why black boxes are also on the train.
No cockpit voice recorder.
The black box can only explain what speed they were going and where. It cannot explain why.
Does not matter what is on the black box nor how fast the train was going (100+ mph according to media reports),
Congressional Democrats and the white Hut have decided that Republican cuts to AMTRAK budget next year are at fault.
Media confirmation to follow.
The proper term in the railroad industry is Event Recorder. Actually, speedometers are still refered to as “Speed Recorders” as the old ones had a paper tape that would log the speed of the locomotive. Modern Event Recorders are digital and download with a SD card... some railroads have “radio downloads” of the event recorder... as the locomotive comes into the terminal yard it wirelessly transfers the data on the Event Recorder. Speed, Throttle setting, dynamic braking, Brakepipe pressure, and a couple other things are logged. Most of the GE locomotives I worked on had a satellite uplink on the cab roof to send engine telemetry to Erie where recorded faults would warrant a shopping to run a specific workscope to troubleshoot and repair the cause of the fault code.